


Life of Riley

by akamarykate



Category: Early Edition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamarykate/pseuds/akamarykate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crumb's retirement didn't go exactly as planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Life of Riley

**Author's Note:**

> Written for LadyFirebird

 

 

The day Marion Zeke Crumb finally retired from the Chicago Police Department, he turned in his badge and gun, had a long lunch with some buddies who insisted on keeping his glass of Scotch full, and then walked through the frozen-slush-covered streets of River North to Gary Hobson's bar. 

He had a few words with Hobson, caught a cab back home, told the driver to keep it idling at the curb, and emerged a few minutes later with a carry-on bag. "O'Hare," he told the cabbie. 

"Hope you're going somewhere warm," said the driver. "You hear what the wind chill's supposed to be tonight?" Crumb nodded, but before he could answer, the cabbie went on. "Forty below. Forty degrees _below_ zero. That's, like, seventy degrees below what we'd need to thaw out all this ice and snow. It's inhuman, is what it is."

"That's Chicago for you," Crumb told him. He pulled the ticket out of his coat pocket. It'd be cruel and unusual punishment to tell the cab driver that it was for the Bahamas. It'd been hard enough telling Hobson he wasn't going to start tending bar, not right away. But after all, it was going to be forty below. And the ticket was nonrefundable. Three years of scrimping and saving and drinking god awful stationhouse coffee all winter and plain label beer all summer. Be a shame to waste all that.

He sat back, closed his eyes to Chicago's snow and skyscrapers, and imagined sand between his toes, sun on his face, a stiff drink in one hand, and a fishing line in the other. All at once. 

Life of Riley.

#

After a few days, he'd found a cheap room to rent near the beach, just down the road from the smallest town on the smallest island that would have him. He went fishing, ate crab cakes, and sat for hours in the sun doing absolutely nothing. 

It was perfect, except for the knot right between his shoulders. Probably it had always been there, and he hadn't noticed it until the rest of his body relaxed. Enough time on this island and it would fade, like the sunburned strip across his nose that was turning into a tan.

# 

By the end of the first week, he'd caught his own weight in marlins, made friends with the guys who tended the tiki hut bars, and gotten more smiles from beautiful ladies than there were shells on the beach. 

The knot was still there, riding his shoulders. Even casting his fishing line didn't seem to work it out. But it was a small thing, compared to all the perks--no calls from the mayor, no demands for overtime, nobody shooting him, nobody trying to fame him, and nobody at all showing up out of the blue yapping about what was going to happen. 

Despite what he'd told Hobson, he was seriously considering finding a parrot and talking to a real estate agent about buying a bar.

One afternoon, he took a stroll into the little town and found its police station, just out of curiosity. It was more of a hut, with a tin roof and a few benches outside, where one of the cops was taking an afternoon siesta. He should have moved down here years ago.

#

By the end of the second week, he was bored out of his mind.

#

"Hey Zeke," said the bartender. Crumb eased himself onto one of the rickety stools outside the bar hut. "How many umbrellas today?"

"Just a beer," Crumb told him.

The bartender--he'd told Crumb his name was Bob--squinted past his thousand-watt smile. "You don't want your usual? We got ripe coconut, and the pineapple's fresh off the boat." 

"Beer," Crumb repeated. "I'm not in an umbrella mood. Tell me something--why do drinks around here need umbrellas, anyway?" When rain came to the island, it was the kind of rain people turned their faces up to, and not the hard, driving rain people hid from back home, where umbrellas had to have the strength of a knight's shield to keep the wind from tearing them to bits.

"Dunno." Cole shrugged and pulled a bottle out of the cooler. He opened it before handing it over, and shoved a lime slice into the bottle neck. 

Even the beer came with fruit.

Crumb turned the bottle in his hands. Bits of ice slid down glass in the fast-forming condensation. If he'd been sitting outside back home right about now, there wouldn't be any condensation, because the air around the bottle would be just as cold as the beer itself.

He sat down on a stool and turned to look at the beach. People were strolling along smiling, wearing short sleeves and floppy hats. Some of the ladies were wearing hardly anything at all. No one cringed when they opened a door, because the air here wasn't ready to plunge icy knives into their lungs. No one was running for taxis, or robbing convenience stores, or dealing drugs--

\--well, okay, they probably were dealing drugs, but here, it was either legal, or no one cared. It sure as hell wasn't his problem.

Crumb didn't have a problem in the world--except his shoulder. He put the beer down and tried to massage it, but he couldn't reach. 

"Bob?" he asked the bartender, who was sampling one of his own creations. Looked more like fruit salad than a cocktail. "What exactly happens around here?"

"Happens?"

"Yeah, you know--excitement. Crime. Anything remotely interesting."

Bob chewed on a pineapple wedge, considering. "Last year we had a stingray come ashore."

"Did it sting anyone?"

"Nope. Threw it back out into the water. No worries."

"No worries," Crumb echoed. 

Bob flashed his smile again. "That's one of the blessings, man. The blessings of paradise."

"Yeah," Crumb said, watching the perfect people having a perfect day on the perfect beach. "Paradise."

#

He found a pay phone, ironically enough, outside the tin-roofed police station. Officer--well, he must be Officer Riley, Crumb decided--was deep into his midday siesta. 

He pumped all the coins he'd been able to find into the pay phone and tried not to think too hard about the fact that he knew the number by heart.

"This is McGinty's," said a female voice.

"Yeah, Hobson there?"

"I'm not sure, I'll--" There was a slight pause. "Detective Crumb?"

"Yeah." 

"Is everything all right?" Crumb recognized the voice now--Nancy Drew to Hobson & Fishman's Hardy Boys. 

"I'm calling from paradise. Everything's fine down here, kinda by definition." 

"Okay, well...that's good." She didn't sound too sure about that. "Hold on, let me find Gary." Her voice went muffled. "Chuck, is Gary around? It's Crumb. No, I don't know why, will you just find him? Don't--Chuck!"

Fishman's nasal voice came on the line. "Crumb?"

"You're not Hobson."

"No, it's me, Chuck Fishman."

"Yeah, I remember--the world's worst bartender. Look, I don't have all day, so would you just--"

"Crumb, I will do anything you want, just tell me how to make a Rolls Royce."

"Four wheels, an engine, leather seats--"

"No, Crumb, really--"

"Suppose you gotta have a radio in there. Probably a chauffeur, too."

"Please! This guy's gonna kill me if I don't--"

Crumb sighed. "Ounce and half of gin, half an ounce of dry vermouth, half an ounce of sweet, dash of Benedictine. Stir and strain."

"Wait--hallllf an ouuunnce--"

"You're writing it down? You're more pathetic than I thought."

"What comes after the dry vermouth?"

"Would you just get Hobson?" Crumb yelled, so loud the dozing cop opened one eye and passing tourists stopped and stared.

"What's Benedict--ow! Gar!"

"Crumb?"

"Hobson. Sounds like things are falling apart up there."

"Oh, we're fine," Hobson said in that weird drawl of his. "I mean, Chuck might as well be driving the customers away with a whip, but other than that, it's great. Really."

"What's the weather like?"

"The weather?"

"Sun, snow, clouds--the weather, Hobson!"

"It's February in Chicago. It's cold and the snow's so old you can't tell it from the dirt. Why do you care? I thought you were in paradise. Life of Riley, isn't that what you said?"

"I know, I just--" Crumb scanned the sleepy little town. The cop grunted and rearranged himself on the bench. "I dunno, I thought you might have been having trouble with, you know, whatever."

"Trouble?"

"Your mumbo jumbo hoochie koochie weirdo kinda trouble. C'mon, Kreskin, what the hell is going on up there?"

"Nothing, Crumb, I swear, we just--" He broke off, and Crumb heard Nancy Drew again, though he couldn't tell what she was saying. "Yeah, Marissa, I know what time it is, I'll get there before the scaffolding falls, don't--no, he's not--Let me finish here, just--"

Crumb pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't want to know. It was none of his business, he couldn't do anything about it, and he did Not. Want. To know.

He was smack dab in the middle of paradise, for the love of Pete. What was he doing, calling this whack job?

"Hey Crumb, I gotta go, so if you're satisfied about the weather and all--"

"Hobson, what the hell is happening up there?"

"Nothing, I--Chuck, that's _not_ the brandy--I can handle it."

Right. And the moon was made of moldy cheese. 

"Is there anything else?" Hobson asked.

"You give away my job yet?"

There was a brief pause. "You talked to Chuck, right?"

"Guess not. Well, I gotta--"

"I gotta go, Crumb."

"Yeah, me too."

"Are you sure there's not--"

"Don't expect me up there any time soon."

"That's what you called to say?" 

"Yeah. That, and I'm glad whatever's going on up there isn't part of my life. I just wanted to make sure I really didn't miss it."

"Right. Bye."

Crumb hung up the phone. The cop on the bench was only pretending to sleep now. Crumb didn't blame him for spying. That phone call was probably the most interesting thing that'd happened on his watch in weeks.

To his right, the town spread out, low buildings and shacks and vacation homes farther up the hill. To his left was the beach, pristine white sand and water so blue it hurt his eyes and air so kind and gentle it might have been a woman's hands and nothing, no one, to make demands or bug him or get in the way of what he wanted to do.

And what he wanted to do was...

What would it be? Siesta? Flirt with the waitresses at the crab shack? Hire a boat and go fishing for more marlins?

Another day in the Life of Riley. 

And suddenly, the knot in his shoulders, which had evaporated without him noticing, was back.

#

On the cab ride in from O'Hare, he kept his eyes open all the way. Steel towers and icy streets, crowds of people hurrying from point A to point B, hunched against the cold.

When the cab dropped him off, Crumb paused before he walked into McGinty's. He didn't have to do it. There were plenty of people who'd be glad to have him visit, plenty of fish in plenty of seas and rivers and lakes. One day he'd go after them.

But today, there were people who needed him, problems he could solve. Right now, right here, things were _happening_.

He squared his shoulders--which hadn't bothered him since the plane had touched down--and walked into the bar. 

It wasn't the life of Riley, but it was close enough for Crumb.

 


End file.
